Top Dem: ‘No smoking gun’ in latest Benghazi documents

The top Democrat on the House committee investigating the Benghazi attack says there is “no smoking gun” among the roughly 60 newly disclosed emails between Hillary Clinton and adviser Sidney Blumenthal.

“I can say that there is no smoking gun,” Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.), the ranking member on the House Select Committee on Benghazi, told reporters before heading into Blumenthal’s closed-door deposition.

“I don’t recall anything on the Benghazi attack itself,” he added.

Cummings said the messages cover a “wide range of things,” but declined to offer specifics.

He called on chairman Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.) to release the emails on Wednesday, but “only if he releases the transcript of the deposition that’s taking place today.”

Cummings predicted that most of Tuesday’s proceedings would concern the latest cache of documents, therefore Blumenthal’s comments about them ought to be made public “so that we can put them in context.”

“We cannot allow this investigation to go on based upon leaks,” he said.

In a statement Monday night, Gowdy he would make the 60 messages public if Cummings consented. If not, the panel would wait five days before doing so.

Cummings told reporters that he had yet to be consulted about the path forward.

He criticized the GOP for assuming the nearly 60 messages, handed over by Blumenthal himself, were not already part of existing document requests made of the former secretary of State or the State Department.

“The responsible thing to do” would have been to compare Blumenthal’s messages to those requests and then determine if there were any discrepancies between them, according to Cummings.

He noted that panel Democrats do not have the power to release the transcript of the Blumenthal proceedings, but that Republicans can release the memos without buy-in from the minority.